Look up here, I’m in heaven
I’ve got scars that can’t be seen
I’ve got drama, can’t be stolen
Everybody knows me now
Look up here, man, I’m in danger
I’ve got nothing left to lose
I’m so high it makes my brain whirl
Dropped my cell phone down below
Ain’t that just like me?
– Songwriters: Annie Clark / David Byrne
– Artist: David Bowie
AS THIS old man sits by his window watching the sun rise, it’s a new day, a beginning, perhaps an end.
Yes, every day the sun rises and is the same in a relative way you’re just older and one day closer to death.
The old man is in his December years and fully aware and conscious of his mortality, not that he’s feeling a certain sadness about it, rather the contrary.
Moi has a full life compared to most, it’s probably overflowing. Let’s put it this way: in my more than six decades and counting what I’ve done and experienced would take an average person perhaps twice his lifetime to even experience half of it.
I live life on the edge; of course moi is not poor, I just happen to have no money.
But enough of this. Let’s talk about something else although quite different but there’s a parallel; David Bowie’s posthumous song Lazarus.
From that free online encyclopedia a.k.a. the internet:
Lazarus is a song by English rock musician David Bowie. It was released on Dec. 17, 2015 as a digital download, making it the second single from his 25th studio album, Blackstar (2016). It is Bowie’s last single to be released.
According to Bowie’s producer Tony Visconti, the lyrics and video of Lazarus and other songs on the album were intended to be a self-epitaph, a commentary on Bowie’s own impending death.
The most chilling moment comes when he plays the isolated vocals from Lazarus, which allow you to hear each agonized breath Bowie took between lines.
“He’s in that song. . . in that moment,” says Visconti. “For the four or five minutes he was singing, he would pour his heart out.”
Now you see the parallel. We’re all dying, of course not just yet, but then again nobody lives forever. It’s how you live your time that matters so live it to the fullest.
Take that trip see the world, buy that expensive watch you’ve always wanted and take your special someone on a dinner date to the most expensive restaurant in town. It’s just money and when you die you can’t take it with you, but memories and experiences you can.
During the week of shooting for the video of the song Lazarus, doctors reportedly informed Bowie the cancer was terminal and that they were ending treatment.
The video is shown in a 1:1 aspect ratio and prominently features Bowie, appearing with a bandage and buttons sewn over his eyes, lying on a deathbed. The video finishes with Bowie retreating into a dark wardrobe.
The symbolism is quite uncanny he already had a premonition of his death.
From Rolling Stone Magazine:
In October 2015, David Bowie decided to end his cancer treatments after learning the disease had spread too far to recover from. The very same week, he traveled to a Brooklyn soundstage to shoot a video for his new song “Lazarus,” the name of a biblical figure that Jesus brought back from the dead. Bowie spent the day in a hospital bed as cameras captured him with a bandage around his head. “Look up here, I’m in heaven,” he howled. “I’ve got scars that can’t be seen.”
The album Blackstar where Lazarus is the third song on the album playlist has always been prominent on my iPhone and iPad music list and this is how it came to be:
And moi was in Starbucks one lazy afternoon chatting with the coffee shop habitués and the political pundits on the latest issues happening in “I Am Iloilo City”; seems like a slow day, nothing interesting to write about in my column.
Out comes the iPad; there’s the usual boring news so moi decided to check out “BlackStar”, David Bowie’s latest and last album on YouTube.
To say that moi is “blown away” is an understatement and definitely it’s not the double espresso.
Perhaps it’s but proper we end with a line from David Bowie he wrote just a few days before he passed away: “I’m very happy with my lot in life and the new album. What more can any man ask for?” (brotherlouie16@gmail.com/PN)
